In 1908, seven years after signing of the D’Arcy concession, the exploration group eventually found oil in commercial quantities in Masjed-Suleiman, Southern Persia. ‘So began the industry, that was to see the Royal Navy through two world wars, and to cause Persia more trouble than all the political manoeuvrings of the great powers put together.’ (L.P. Elwell-Sutton, historian)

Blowback (2013)

The project looks back at the financial records of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) prior to the nationalization of oil industry in Iran, which led to the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in a CIA/MI6-backed coup d’état, codenamed Operation Ajax.

The growing anti-western sentiment partially stemmed from five decades of struggle with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and reluctant involvements in the two World Wars, followed by a plot which toppled the undoubtedly most popular government in Iranian contemporary history, resulted in an outburst, which showed itself in the form of 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The photographs demonstrate excited fluids under the effect of sound waves with particular frequencies. The figures used to generate the frequencies correspond to the company’s net profits, royalties to Iran and (if applicable) British taxes, in nine most critical years of the company’s 42 year-long activity in Iran prior to the nationalization.

Accompanying the photographs are excerpts from declassified documents and found images related to the events immediately before and after Operation Ajax.

1950

AIOC net profits: £33,103,000

Royalties to Iran: £16,032,000

British taxes: £50,707,000

331.03Hz & 160.32Hz & 507.07Hz

1949

AIOC net profits: £18,390,000

Royalties to Iran: £13,489,000

British taxes: £22,480,000

183.90Hz & 134.89Hz & 224.80Hz

1947

AIOC net profits: £18,565,000

Royalties to Iran: £7,104,000

British taxes: £14,800,000

185.65Hz & 71.04Hz & 148.00Hz

1943

AIOC net profits: £5,639,000

Royalties to Iran: £4,000,000

British taxes: £7,663,000

56.39Hz & 40.00Hz & 76.63Hz

1941

AIOC net profits: £3,222,000

Royalties to Iran: £4,000,000

British taxes: £2,921,000

32.22Hz & 40.00Hz & 29.21Hz

"All that the United States contributed to this was the trigger, which consisted of myself and three other Americans and less than $100,000,although we had ten times that amount available to us,stashed in a safe the size of a large closet."